The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Hasan Abubakar, says the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has become a force to reckon with among a comity of nations since its 60 years of existence.

Mr Abubakar communicated this at the interdenominational church service as part of the activities lineup for NAF’s 60th anniversary celebration on Sunday in Abuja.

Represented by the Chief of Policy and Plans, Sayo Olatunde, Mr Abubakar said the NAF, which started from a humble beginning, had become one of the top air forces on the African continent.

Mr Abubakar reiterated the commitment of the service towards addressing the myriad of security challenges confronting the nation.

“We are actually making progress, just for some few things that prevent the impact of our successes from being seen and being felt by the country.

“I am sure those things should be resolved, and then we can begin to have peace in this country,” the air chief said.

The CAS said the NAF continued to make frantic efforts to improve the welfare of its personnel and the families of fallen heroes through several projects and initiatives.

According to him, he has instituted insurance that will cater for illness and accidents, in addition to what is obtainable from the Ministry of Defence level, as part of efforts to cater for the welfare of personnel.

The air chief said the recruitment process had been sanitised to ensure that only the best were taken.

“And one of the steps we took was to train our recruitment officers to be able to determine those people who are with drugs, who have ulterior motives for wanting to come to the service.

“From the screening process we just started that 100 per cent of the efforts are just betrayed at Kaduna airport based communities.

“Another step we take to enhance the quality of personnel coming into the air force is to make sure we do screening, a computer screening test, even before we call them for an interview,” he said.

The chairman of the organising Committee, Michael Ekwueme, called on Nigerians to pray for the service in its operational engagement and the success of the occasion.

“Let us continue to thank God and pray for the success of the event; foreign participants have started arriving; let us pray for the safety of those on their way,” he said.

(NAN)